Red Alert 2: Mental Omega – Mod review

Mental Omega – What better way to start a series of Red Alert 2 mod reviews than with the biggest mod out there *.

Mental Omega – or near perfect Yuri’s Revenge is more than a Red Alert 2 mod. It’s a completely new game that takes what made RA2 & YR great and expands on it. New units? Check! A revamped campaign that takes the story of the vanilla campaign and makes it longer and harder? Check! Three completely different factions with each having three equally different sub factions? Check! Scratch that, four different factions with three different sub factions. Check! Better AI? Check? Online Multiplayer with multiple new game modes including co-op missions and challenges? Check? Are you ready commander? You might not be.

The Campaigns

With such a big mod, like Mental Omega, it’s hard to decide where to start the review. The first place i always go to when getting a new game is the campaign. It’s a nice way to learn the mechanics and new units while enjoying the story.

The good

Each of the four Factions (Allied, Soviet, Yuri or Epsilon Army as they’re called in the mod & Foehn Revolt) has a campaign of its own. The three old factions have a total of 66 missions!! With at least two more for each faction on their way in a future update.

While the new faction has four campaign missions at the moment and two more announced. Each mission can be played on easy, normal and mental difficulty. I only recommend mental difficulty if you’re familiar with new Mental Omega units and changes to the old ones.

I haven’t completed all 66 missions, but from what I’ve played and read online, some missions are based on vanilla missions but expanded and made longer and tougher, while some are completely new. The Yuri/Epsilon & Foehn campaigns are completely new and original.

As mentioned before the missions are hard and there are a lot of missions with limited units and compared to vanilla games a lot more micro management is required to complete the missions. The missions also vary a lot, so it does not become repetitive and if you find a particular mission too hard you can always just skip to the next. I find that to be a good design idea, as this mod will be hard for casual players and they can experience the campaign even if they get stuck on a mission or two.

The bad

The only two complaints I have about the missions are that they’re long. The missions in RA2 & YR took anywhere from 5-30 minutes to complete (if weren’t turtling) with around 20 minutes being the sweet spot. With Mental Omega most missions will take longer than 30 minutes to complete, with some being longer than an hour. An hour with knowing what you’re doing. If you’re going in the mission blind, It’s going to take you longer. Some might take this as a positive. I think it’s a bit much. The second really small complaint is that some of the maps are cluttered with props and since some units are small they can be sometimes hard to see. But this is a nitpick.

When you finish the campaign missions there are also 12 covert missions available. These are sort of side missions that expand on the story of MO campaigns.

Skrimish & Online

If we focus our attention to skirmish & online play. There are quite a few game modes to choose from. We have the standard modes like Battle, Free For All & Unholy alliance and then a bunch of new ones.

For example the Challenge mode is a mode where you and your ally ( AI or human ) complete a series of challenging maps, each with its own twist and you can choose from three difficulties. Same goes for Co-op missions, but those can only be played online with a friend. Some other modes included are Infantry only, Assault, Fortress, King of hill, Oil control, Bounty and a few more. You’ll need to download the mod to test what each mode is. I’ll just say I had the most fun with the Challenge & Bounty modes.

Maps!

The map selection is huge for each game mode in Mental Omega. It includes the original Westwood maps, some which got a small face-lift, like pirate bay that is now a snow map and some maps get a new tech building or two. A lot of love and care went into design of the new maps as most of them are really interesting and have a lot of tactical possibilities. And the maps have quite a few new ornaments like new buildings, props, and ground textures and I think I even saw a new tree variant or two.

There are quite a few new tech buildings, like deposit bank that functions like an oil derrick just provides a bigger cash bonus. Or a missile bunker that provides a missile strike to the commander in possession of the building. There are over 20 tech buildings all together.

When creating a game for yourself or friends online you get a lot of options to choose from beside the game mode and the map. All the old ones return like the decision to turn on or off super-weapons, short game, crates etc. But there are a few new ones. Are you tired of that annoying player that builds navy on little big lake? Just turn off the naval combat, Want the oil derricks to be immune to attacks turn that option on. Hard AI not Hard enough? Turn on Mental Omega AI boost that gives the AI some extra IQ points. You can also set the tech level, you can set it low and only play with basic units or set it to 10 and have the whole tech tree available.

The AI

A quick word about the AI. The AI in the Mental Omega mod is much more challenging that the one in vanilla Red Alert 2. Playing against one HARD AI is already a challenge and the one game I played 1v1 with hard AI with mental boost on I only won because the map was one with a choke point that I was able to defend it. Somehow. After I bombarded the AIs Construction yard it built three more. I’ve never seen that on vanilla. So if you’re looking for a challenge tick that option on and die.

Factions of Mental Omega

Let’s start to talk about the factions in the mod. Allies, Soviet, Epsilon army and Foehn revolt. Each faction also has three sub factions. So there’s 12 different armies and tech trees to choose from and each has its own tricks up its sleeves.

Allies

The allied faction is divided into Euro Alliance, United States & the Pacific front.

The Euro Alliance

The Euro Alliance is the closes to the original Allied faction as it has the most familiar units like Mirage and Prism tanks. They’re a good defensive faction. The standout new unit for Euro Alliance is the Thor Gunship. A gunship that uses weather technology to call lightening upon its enemies. The hero unit for the Alliance is Siegfried. A scientist that moves around on a hovering cannon that fires an unstable chrono vortex. How cool is that?

The United States

The United States is a faction that relies on fast units and precision strikes. Once they build a drop control center they can deploy paradrops of infantry or light vehicles anywhere on the battlefield. The unit I liked the most is the Athena Cannon. It’s the siege weapon of the USA. It calls an orbital laser strike upon the enemies. It looks really cool. The hero unit is of course Tanya that is now equipped with a laser rifle that makes short work of infantry and tanks.

Pacific front.

The last sub-faction of the Allies is the Pacific front.  They have a variety of long range weapons and heavy artillery. For me it’s stand out unit was the Zephyr it functions much like Nods mobile artillery in Tiberian sun. Deploying a supporting power called Zephyrobot allows these siege weapons to fire across the map. The hero unit is a Norio that is basically beefed up Rocketeer.

Across all faction various units you know make a return like the rocketeers, Seals, GIs and GGIs. Along with quite a few new ones like Siege Cadre, Medic, Stormchild aircraft and a battleship! Superweapons of the factions are still the Chronosphear and the weather control device, but depending on the faction you get a lot of cool support powers like a mercury strike, Sonar pulse, Hunter seeker etc.

Soviets

Russia

Russia is the first sub-faction of the Soviets and its tactics are based on mobile units and tesla based weaponry. Like the USA they have two paradrops – tank drop & terror drone drop. My favorite unit is the tesla cruiser. It’s basically the tesla tank from RA2 but it’s really powerful this time around. This faction is the one of two with two hero units. The cybernetic dog who’s name I’m not going to butcher. It functions the same as a terror drone, but it’s much more deadly and resistant. The second is Volkov. he is a cyborg that has a chain lightening tesla canon as his weapon. And it’s as awesome as it sounds. He can tear entire platoons of tanks into dust all by himself.

Latin Confederation

Specializing in guerilla tactics with infantry support is the Latin Confederation. Mortar squad, arsonists, bomb buggies, catastrophe tank are a few of the weapons they use to strike fear in their enemies, but the standout has to be the Buratino. It’s tank that fires multiple fire rockets at once and can destroy platoons of enemies as easy as a knife goes through butter. A unit called Morales is the hero of the Latin Confederation. He’s a sniper that can kill the drivers of certain vehicles and allows an engineer to capture said units. As a sniper infantry does not present a big challenge for him and he can order a nuclear airstrike upon buildings.

China

They have slow but extremely powerful and resistant units. They have a lot of units that would be standouts on other factions but when compared to the centurion they cannot compare. The centurion siege crawler is a hero unit on its own. Not only does it have a powerful ground attack and some deadly anti air missiles, it can also load three infantry units that can fire out of the centurion while inside. This make the unit one of the deadliest out there. Why I’m not in a centurion is a quote from Yunru the hero unit of china. Her main weapon is the immobilizer that as the name suggest stops tanks in their tracks. While that seems rather anticlimactic her second weapon is the earth breaker. It does exactly what it sounds like. Breaks earth.

All factions have (among others) the use of the terror drones, Kirovs, loyal conscripts and dogs. Some of the more interesting support powers are the Overcharge that gives all units with tesla weapons 50 extra firepower for 23seconds. Or the Repair drone that can be dropped anywhere on the field so it can repair your damaged tanks.

Epsilon

The Epsilon army is Mental Omega mod version of Red Alert 2  Yuri faction. It’s divided into the PSI CORPS, SCORPION CELL and the Epsilon headquarters.

Psi Corps

Psi corp use mind control units and amphibious assaults. No unit really stood out for me here. You’ve got the faithful mastermind and Magnetron (which is changed a bit and disables enemies and not bring them closer). Libra the hero unit is strong against all types of enemies but air. And her deploy ability is deadly to nearby tanks as it rolls them over causing them to explode.

The Scorpion cell

The Scorpion cell excels in their numbers and chemical weapons. This faction has to me the least impressive units, but it doesn’t mean they’re useless. Their low cost and therefore large numbers and their speed can prove to be trouble to all other factions. The Malver their hero unit is a cloacked assassin that uses a kinetic blade to kill infantry and destroy tanks. When deployed he use his mind can slow down and weaken enemy forces.

Epsilon headquarters

The only thing you need to know about them is the IRKALLA! Do they have a hero that snipes’ infantry turning them in to brutes? Yes, but who cares. Are their tactics based on infantry and stealth? Yes, but who cares! IRKALLA is a flying fortress that can obliterate whole bases on its own. Look at this beast of a machine in action!

Some of the units and support powers you get to use as all epsilon factions are for example a raven scout. It’s a support power that summons a raven to the battle field that you can use to scout the map. Or the shadow ring that makes units in an area invisible for 50 seconds.The flatig discs make a return but they’re called invaders now, and the loyal brutes are also available to all factions.

The Foehn Revolt

The Foehn Revolt isn’t in Red Alert 2 but is completely new faction in the Mental Omega mod. Not much is known about Foehn as their info is classified. Haihead sub faction focuses on firepower, Wings of Coronia on aircrafts and The Last bastion on their unit durability. Their heroes Fin, Alize, Eureka and Uragan each bring destruction on the field. Especially Uragan. This is a completely new faction and I must admit I didn’t play much of them yet so I’m very unfamiliar with their units and game-play. But they look unique but also familiar with their design and I’m sure when you get to know all the units they’re a joy to play as.And their super-weapon the Great TEMPEST is as deadly as any other.

VISUALS & SOUND OF MENTAL OMEGA

A Quick word about the visuals, sound and music. I really won’t be long here as all I can say everything is crème Della crème, top of the top. The new visual effects are fantastic and they fit the units, same goes for the unit sounds and quotes. A big massive tank sounds like a big massive tank. A creepy Yuri fiend sounds terrifying. And the soundtrack is amazing. And from what I understand it’s all new.

The Cons

I’ve mentioned before that the cons of the campaign. the length of each mission and the clutter of props on the map that sometimes make you miss units. There’s another bigger con I have with the mod, but it’s probably not the fault of the authors of the mod, but the engine the game runs on. With so many new units and changes to them it takes a long time to remember what unit does what or what support power does what.

The need to re-learn

You need a lot of game-time with each faction to learn the units before you even start learning the tactics each faction requites to be the most successful. Allied and soviet units are quite similar to Red Alert 2, but it’s a real problem with the Epsilon and Foehn.

Is that tank anti air or anti infantry? Or what does that unit do?

Or you learn one sub faction and you learn that unit A is for anti-air. Cool you try the next sub faction and that unit is gone and you need to figure it out all again. I know the same can be said for vanilla Red Alert 2, but the number of units available is much smaller. I don’t know maybe it’s just me, but an option to turn on unit descriptions for in-game would be a welcome addition for new players. Like when you hover with your mouse over the icon of a unit it says its name, why not add into brackets its purpose. For example: Mirage Tank (Anti-armor) or Teratorn (anti-air). I was told an such an addon exists and is available on the Mental Omega discord.

Online Experience

This is neither a con or a pro. However I have very mixed experiences playing Mental Omega mod online. The last time I played there were a lot of games based in Asia and therefor a lot of laggy games. And I had trouble finding an opponent with similar skill sets. They were either pros or really new players. In my fist game online I got a cheater. For that reason I mostly stick to games vs AI which are a hell ova lot fun with the better AI and I won’t hold my bad experiences with online play against the mod, as I’d need to play it more online to give a proper opinion.

Conclusion

All of the cons I mentioned are really minor and Mental Omega is really a perfect Red Alert 2 – Yuri’s Revenge mod.
+ New (Long) campaign
+ New units, factions
+ A lot of other new content
+ High production values
– Some missions are too long
– Easy to get lost in the new content
– Online experiences may vary

Mental Omega grade:

OUTSTANDING 10/10

*This review is of the 3.3.4 release of Red Alert 2 Mental Omega mod. As of the time of this article the mod is in it’s 3.3.5 version and offers new content like new challenges, extra covert and campaign missions, new settings etc.